


The Victor

by dragonwings948



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Depression, Hopeful Ending, Post-Episode: The Day of the Doctor, Post-Regeneration (Doctor Who), Post-Time War (Doctor Who), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Referenced Time War (Doctor Who), Regeneration, Sad, Self-Hatred, TARDIS Wardrobe Room, Time War (Doctor Who), Time War Angst (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28413306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonwings948/pseuds/dragonwings948
Summary: Following his regeneration after the Time War, the man who once called himself the Doctor wonders why he's still alive.*Rated T just because it's pretty heavy stuff, if you can't tell by the tags*
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	The Victor

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the short story "A Day to Yourselves" from The Wintertime Paradox that references a time when the Ninth Doctor destroyed all the mirrors in the wardrobe room. It turned into an angsty post-regeneration fic, and now here we are.

My whole world is pain.

It eats at me, tearing me apart inch by inch. Everything I am is eaten away. Every idea. Every feature. Every strand of hair. Every memory.

All I can do is scream, but there is something inside of me that stays constant, the one thought that can't be touched by the never-ending pain.

_Please let this be the end._

It's the only thing I can hang onto until, like the flip of a switch, the pain is gone.

_I'm alive._

I wonder how many times I've had that thought in relief, how many times I've cheated death.

_I'm alive._

This time, it makes me clench my hands into fists. This time, it sets my teeth on edge.

“I'm alive," I growl, and it is a curse, it's defiance, it's hatred and shame and guilt.

"I'm alive!" It's a scream that tears itself from my throat as I pound my fists against the console in front of me. There is no satisfaction because I feel no pain; I'm still too new for that. But my fists come down hard again, every strike a punishment against myself. Sparks fly. I yell. I yell because I see burning. I see blood. I see destruction and desperation.

I see my hand on the button that ended it all.

There are tears coursing down my cheeks, obstructing my vision. For all I know, I’m in Hell; because the worst punishment isn't dying, but having to live with what I've done.

It seems like an eternity before I can feel the pain, and by that time, the console is destroyed.

For just a moment, I feel something other than anger. The TARDIS is quiet. Too quiet. I breathe heavily, staring at the crumpled heap of metal before me.

"This is all I can do now," I whisper. "Destroy."

I run from the console room, fleeing the guilt and running back to my anger. Anger is safe. Anger is what I know.

I stumble half-blind through the corridors as memories overwhelm me. Screaming Daleks. Dead bodies. Fire. So much fire… I can still smell it on my clothes, like the fabric absorbed the smoke and flames. I become aware of how wrong I feel in another man's clothes— _his_ clothes, soaked in blood. I suddenly feel a frantic need to shed every last remnant of that man. The man who killed. The man who chose wrong.

 _I am that man,_ I tell myself, but in defiance of those words, I shed the old battered coat. While the physical weight leaves me, the mental weight does not. I unwind the scarf around my neck and drop it to the floor as my feet quicken into a run.

I finally reach the door I've been searching for and run into the wardrobe, struggling with my waistcoat with one hand and trying to push off a boot with the other. There's a flash of something to my right—my movement in a mirror, I realise—and I immediately turn my head away.

I don't want to know what I look like. I don’t want to see my eyes staring back at me ever again because I know what I’ll see. I’ll see the terrible horrors I created with my own hands. I’ll see the innocent Gallifreyan children as they looked before the slaughter— _oh god, how many children?_

Without thought, my arm strikes out, knuckles colliding with the glass of the mirror. It shatters, but not enough. I strike again. And again. And again...

It's only once the floor is covered in glass and my knuckles are bloody that I decide to complete my transformation. Normally, my choice of outfit in a new body is carefully contemplated.

This time, it’s anything but.

I reach out and grab the closest set of clothes—jeans and a v-neck. I pull them on, but I still feel wrong. I feel like I haven’t changed bodies at all because every ounce of guilt remains. Maybe my face has changed, but nothing else has.

An item of clothing hanging beside me catches my eye. Anger flares up in me again.

“You think you're trying to be funny?" I shout, the words echoing back to me. I rip the black leather coat from its hanger, but it's not the same as my old one. It’s newer, like all the years of fighting and war and bloodshed have been wiped clean away.

I throw it to the ground. Those years _haven’t_ been wiped away. They're replaying in my head over and over again at that very moment. The hands that killed are my hands. The mind that devised the plan to wipe out my people is still inside my skull.

There's a bitter taste in my mouth that I'm not sure will ever go away. I wonder why I can't just die. I wonder why I changed when really nothing has changed at all.

My eyes are drawn to the leather jacket in a heap on the ground. What if I bury the past? What if I move on and trap the last me somewhere I'll never find him again?

He fought. He killed. He destroyed worlds.

I can be different.

Maybe it’s impossible to move on, but I will not keep fighting a war that I ended. The lives I save may be stacked up against the millions that he took, but it’s all I can do, the only semblance of victory I can hope to achieve.

I pick up the coat and shrug it on. It smells not of flames, but rather carries the sharp scent of new leather. It's a reminder of who I used to be but also a promise that I am a soldier no more.

"I am the Doctor," I say, testing, the strange words on strange lips with a strange accent.

And I feel something that's not rage or shame. It’s a tiny glow in my chest, like a single candle in the midst of the darkest night.

_Hope._


End file.
